


through the years

by SydneyHorses



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Can be platonic or romantic, Canon Compliant, Edelbert if you squint, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SydneyHorses/pseuds/SydneyHorses
Summary: Four snapshots of four different times Hubert does Edelgard's hair for her.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	through the years

**Author's Note:**

> i love them very much and think they are best friends. this can be romantic or platonic, i go back and forth on which way i want this to be read

Edelgard is five years old when Hubert does her hair for the first time. It’s one of her first clear memories of him: careful hands combing through her hair, pulling a strand behind her ear and clumsily tying a bow there. He does the other side as well, and then steps back, letting her examine herself in the mirror.

At her age and her height, Edelgard has to sit on a box to be the right height to sit on the chair in front of her vanity. Still, she puffs up her cheek and turns her head from side to side, swinging her legs freely. “My sister can tie the bows better,” she says.

Hubert frowns. He’s seven, and looks deeply disappointed by her words. “Let me try again. Please, Lady Edelgard.”

“Why do you call me Lady?” she says, crossing her arms and sitting back so that Hubert can redo the bows in her hair. “I’m younger than you.”

Hubert isn’t gentle enough when he pulls the ribbons out of her hair, and Edelgard lets out a cry of pain. He grimaces, flinching in sympathy. That’s what it means to be a von Vestra, his father has told him, over and over again: Lady Edelgard’s pain is his pain. “I apologize,” he says, sniffing. “I - are you okay?”

Edelgard scrubs at her eyes, then sits a little straighter in her chair. “I’m fine,” she says, prim as ever.

Hubert nods, slow and a little jerkily. Soon, that will pass, and he will learn how to be what a von Vestra should be, and conceal all signs of emotions. For now, though, he simply passes the comb through Edelgard’s pale brown hair again, then gets to work retying the bows.

-

When Hubert is nine, he learns properly what his father meant when he said that Lady Edelgard’s pain would be his own. Later, he’d describe it to her as if he’d lost one of his own limbs, but that description seems too passive for the level of loss that he occurred.

When he is seventeen, she returns to him, pale faced and with hair the color of bone, it feels like part of him is gone forever. She’s quieter than she once was, but she sits at her vanity and lets him brush her hair like he used to when they were children. “El?” he asks, soft and frightened.

“I’m fine,” she says, her voice clipped and tight.

Hubert nods once, although he knows she can’t see it, and then sets the brush aside. “Of course, Lady Edelgard. I apologize for my outburst.”

Something like a smile twitches at her lips, and Hubert feels a rush of relief at the thought that something of the girl she was before being so cruelly taken still remains. “To call that an outburst seems extreme.”

Hubert picks up the purple ribbons he’d set aside for her. “Of course.” He pulls the first section back, knotting the purple bow expertly into a ribbon. It’s been years, but his fingers still know the motions. This, at least, he can do.

When he’s done, Edelgard examines herself in the mirror, touching her hair with a careful, almost frightened hand. “Thank you,” she says.

Hubert doesn’t know what to say. He nods. “Of course.”

Edelgard sits there for another long moment, still as the dead. Hubert needs to do more. There’s something missing. He steps forward and sets his hand on her shoulder, squeezing tightly. Edelgard stiffens, then meets his gaze in the reflection of the mirror. “Excuse my sentiment,” he says, feeling not at all like the seventeen year old he knows he is. He’s a child, being introduced to Edelgard for the first time again. He’s seven, and learning that her pain is his pain. 

He’s her best friend. He doesn’t think von Vestras are supposed to have that sort of thing.

“It’s going to be alright,” he says.

Edelgard bites her lip and closes her eyes. “They’re all dead,” she says, a confession choked with a sorrow he will never feel as deeply as her.

“I know,” he says. He squeezes her shoulder again. “But you’re not, and you’re not going to die. I’m not going to let you.”

Edelgard wipes at her eyes. There’s no tears, he notes - it’s as though she’s preventing even the very idea of tears. She’s changed so much. He’s going to have to work overtime to catch up. “Thank you,” she says. “I have simply… never been so alone, I suppose.”

“I am here,” Hubert says, the words too fast and too desperate. “Lady Edelgard, as long as I draw breath, you will _never_ be alone. My allegiance is to you, and you alone.”

Edelgard is fifteen and scared, but when she turns and hugs him it feels just like it did when they were children. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

-

The Officer’s Academy is in turns enlightening and infuriating. Hubert loathes the other students, even as they attempt to endear themselves to him and Lady Edelgard. It’s a disgrace that they’re here at all, although he imagines it comforts Lady Edelgard to have some distance between herself and Those Who Slither in the Dark.

Still, there is good here. Lady Edelgard thrives, even if Hubert feels more and more out of place with each passing moment. He knows that her nightmares still trouble her - they must - but the walls of Garreg Mach are made of a thick stone, and no sound penetrates them.

It comes as a surprise when she knocks on his door in the middle of the night, rousing him from a fitful slumber. Hubert does not sleep much, anymore, and when he does his dreams are troubled. It has been that way ever since Lady Edelgard was taken as a child. He can’t imagine that she sleeps very well anymore either.

Hubert drags himself out of bed and pulls on his thin dressing gown, making his way over to the door and opening it with a slow creak. It seems unlikely that any assassin would try to provoke him at this time of night. He’s a mage, and is armed wherever he goes, and most of the ‘misfortunes’ that have afflicted the monastery are of his and Lady Edelgard’s own design.

Still, he’d guess an assassin at his doorstep before Lady Edelgard, clad in a thin nightgown and with her hair pooling around her shoulders like a curtain.

“Hubert.”

He frowns; she does not look quite well. Are her hands shaking? “Lady Edelgard. Are you alright?”

“I-” she sighs and shakes her head. “May I come in?”

He moves out of the way before he can even process what she’s asked. “Of course.”

“Thank you.” She steps past him and glides into the room, sitting down at his desk without saying another word.

Hubert closes the door behind her. “What can I do?”

She lets out a small, sad laugh. “It was just a nightmare, Hubert. Don’t be overdramatic.”

She’s still shaking. She’s his reason for being, and he can’t fix it when she’s scared. He’s always been her servant, but in recent years he’s realized that he’s also her closest friend. It’s a pity he doesn’t know how to be one.

Hubert crosses the room without a word, standing just behind her. “Please,” he says, only for her ears.

Edelgard sits up a little straighter in her chair. “Will you braid my hair?” she asks. Her voice is still too small. It’s the voice of a scared, seventeen year old girl, not a soon-to-be Emperor. He wishes, fiercely, for the first time in a long while, that just one of her siblings was alive, and that she’d have someone to share part of this burden with.

“Of course,” Hubert says. “I’d be happy to.” He fetches his comb from the top of his dresser, and then steps behind her. 

At the first pass of the comb through her hair she lets out a soft sigh, and as she slumps deeper into her chair, Hubert starts to quietly hum. He has no voice like Dorothea, or even like Ferdinand, obnoxious as he may be, but Edelgard’s eldest sister had a lovely voice. She used to sing Edelgard to sleep, and Hubert as well every once in a while when he got very, very lucky. He can’t remember any of the words, just the tune, but the tension in Edelgard’s shoulders slowly eases. By the time he has a simple braid finished, she’s half asleep, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to help her to her feet and lead her carefully back to her bedroom. She mumbles a thank you before falling into bed, and he sits on the floor next to her bed until she’s fast asleep once more. 

-

It’s 1180, and all their dreams are coming to fruition. There’s death, but there’s always been death, and Hubert has long been accustomed to the smell of blood. It’s war, and it’s necessary, and everything they’ve always hoped for is within reach.

Hubert is a general, now, in addition to Lady Edelgard’s servant. His list of titles seems to grow daily. Still, friendship is an older bond than soldier, and so it is easy to sit in her tent on quiet mornings and take his coffee while she gets ready. Her battle regalia is heavy and imposing, and he’s seen firsthand the way it leaves angry red lines in her skins at the end of each day. He’s lucky, he supposes. His persona requires he look imposing, not regal, and a heavy coat and dark cape is far more comfortable than formfitting armor and a headdress that weighs almost as much as her axe.

It’s heavy and awkward enough that she can’t properly put it on by herself, and although she has people to help her with such things, Hubert is normally the one that does so. It seems like a natural evolution of his duties. He was there when she planned the war; he may as well be the one to help her prepare for it each day.

“You’ve always done my hair for me,” she remarks one morning, meeting his gaze the mirror. 

“I do many things for you,” he says, low and unimpressed.

“I suppose you do,” she muses. “Still. I feel as though I have been a bad friend.”

Hubert’s mouth twists. “Lady Edelgard, please, know that you do not need to do my hair in exchange. I have no desire for such a thing.”

She crosses her arms. He guessed correctly, then. She’s the same, despite everything. “Well, I feel as though I should repay you in some way.”

He laughs. “Win your war. That should be payment enough.”

Edelgard frowns. “It’s our war. You know that. If it were my war alone, it would not be a very just cause.”

“And our cause is just,” he agrees, finishing the second half of her hair. “Still, all I care for is carving your new dawn, and creating a better world.”

“Hm.” Edelgard stands, turning toying with a strand of hair. “Someday, after that, you’ll let me do something nice for you. It’s only fair.”

Hubert smiles, forgetting himself. When Edelgard talks of the future, he can almost forget all the bloodshed and bodies he’s left behind him. They all seem insignificant, meaningless in his quest to see her so happy and to know that a better world will come from it all. “Of course,” he says. “I look forward to that day.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me abt edie on twitter @edelgardlesbian


End file.
